Somalia, Zimbabwe and US Media

On March 29 when I turned on my car radio to listen to NPR, the news started with coverage of events in Zimbabwe. As usual the story wasn't good. The radio reported how Zimbabwean security had broken into the opposition headquarters and may have arrested the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai; this coming just a few days after he had been arrested and beaten.

While this was a sad story that needed to be told, it paled in comparison to what a US ally started doing that very day in Somalia.

Starting on March 29 the Ethiopian army stationed in Somalia began new military operations in the capital that led to the death, injury and displacement of thousands of civilians. According to Somali media outlets Ethiopian forces were indiscriminately shelling residential areas. Quite conveniently this news was omitted from the headlines of US news outlets.

NPR for example didn't cover the events in Somalia until April 3rd*, even then omitting much of the detail that Somali News Outlets such as Shabelle Network were reporting. In the mean time it had carried stories on Zimbabwe on April 1 and April 2**. The BBC to its credit did a better job (atleast online). For those of us in the US, unless we sought out the news on Somalia on the web, there was little evidence of what transpired in Mogadishu over four days of heavy fighting.

It is outrageous that supposedly impartial media outlets omit and editorialize news to keep the names of loyal representatives of US power, such as Meles Zenawi, out of the spotlight. Such blatantly partial coverage, even of supposedly "remote" areas erodes trust in the institutions that are essential to the working of free societies.
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*Just to make sure that I didn't merely miss the coverage, I did a search on their website which yielded no results for Somalia during Mar 29-April 2.

**It should by now be obvious that the coverage of Zimbabwe has nothing to do with human rights or democracy and everything to do with powerful western interests that want to see change in the land reform policies that Mugabe and Zanu-PF are pushing.

On Dagmawi's Comments - TPLF and the Somali Crisis

I read a rather amazing comment by Dagmawi that essentially accuses what he calls Diaspora politicians of using the Somali threat for their own political ends. He feels that there is a dilemma and those opposed to Meles’s actions are not using “rational or scientific thought process when they analyze events.” And he in fact calls them extremists.

I wonder, are viewpoints only rational when they support one’s own conclusions? The reason I ask is that first there is ample evidence including eyewitness accounts that EPRDF has sent Ethiopian soldiers into Somalia. Is it the least bit irrational to see that such intervention ignites patriotic feelings? Hasn't the UIC used it to that effect? Doesn't such sentiment silence moderates from challenging the UIC? Have we not seen similar feelings of patriotism silence people even here in the world’s biggest democracy just a few years ago? Is it irrational then to point out that Meles has given the UIC the best tool in its propaganda arsenal?

Is it not rational to point out that Meles and Co would use this opportunity to garner support from the US? Was that not the claim so used by them to fight HR-5680 - that they were the US’s people in Somalia? Is this not the same drum that Dick Armey has been beating inside the halls of congress? Why would it be irrational when "diaspora politicians" say it but not the actors them selves?

I would certainly like to see the rational and scientific thought process that would lead to the conclusion that Ethiopian soldiers ought to be inside Somalia. Where is the reasoned explanation that it would benefit Ethiopians to be engaged in this developing crisis in the current manner. This at a time when the US is publicly distancing itself from Ethiopian involvement seeing the impending disaster.

When David Shinn, former ambassador to Ethiopia, testified in 2005 about what made Ethiopia important to the US, he started with its security system and the pool of young people that it can recruit to its military. Given this, one could say that Meles is exploiting the situation for his own gains, or one can also say he is doing someone else’s bidding. Take your pick, neither has Ethiopia’s interests at heart. It seems a no-brainer, and quite rational, to keep Ethiopian soldiers inside Ethiopia protecting the border. Let the Somali’s sort their own house.

Short term gains should never substitute Ethiopian longterm national interst. Almost sixty years ago, the Ethiopian monarch Haile Sellassie was pressured to vote for the 1947 UN partitioning plan to devide Palestine in to an Arab and Jewish sector. This measure was opposed by the Arab countries, and strongly supported by the US. There was strong pressure on Ethiopia to vote for the measure. The then Emperor understood that we had in the end to live with our neighbors regardless of what he was being asked to do. Ethiopia abstained. It was a calculated move, one that took the country out of confrontation with the neighboring Arab states. Most importantly it was a decision made with Ethiopian interests first and foremost.

Dagmawi calls for a set of principles for those that oppose TPLF’s current strategy in Somalia. How about putting Ethiopian interests first? How is that for a principle?